Verlander rocked by lowly White Sox

Chicago White Sox’s Dayan Viciedo reaches home plate after connecting for a three-run home run off Detroit Tigers relief pitcher Al Alburquerque during the eighth inning in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Just hours after their manager had praised them for playing hard to the end of the 11-game road trip, and noting their fight-to-the-finish attitude in the one lone loss in the four-game set at Cleveland, the Detroit Tigers could not close anything out to save their lives.

Pitching without his best stuff, starter Justin Verlander couldn’t seem to get the third out of an inning.

Then he and the rest of the Tigers couldn’t finish off what had been a fine pitching duel through seven innings, giving up 10 runs on 15 hits in the final two frames, as the last-place Chicago White Sox — the lowest-scoring team in the American League — rolled away to an 11-4 win.

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“All the way around, just not a good night for us,” said Matt Tuiasosopo, whose solo homer in the fifth was the first run of the game.

On top of that nobody — and that means NOBODY — could stop Alex Rios, who had six hits on the night, tying an AL record for a nine-inning game.

“We got beat up. It was really a good game for six innings and it got pretty ugly at the end. Unfortunately it was ugly for us and not for them,” said manager Jim Leyland, who called it a “blah night” for his Tigers.

“I wish I had some dramatic quote for you or something but I don’t. We got the (crap) beat out of us, period. I don’t know what else to tell you. It was pretty obvious if you watched the game and I’m sure you all watched the game.

“Like I said, it was a nip and tuck game for six innings and boom. You know you’re not going to win the game when you’ve got a guy on the opposing team that gets six hits. I got six in August one year.”

The Tigers (49-40) got contributions from all over to go 7-4 on the road trip. The only loss in the final seven games of the three-city tour was Sunday, when the Tigers fell behind 6-1 early, then battled back to tie it, before losing late.

“It’s amazing, too, because on that road trip, the game I was as proud of as any on that road trip was Sunday. And we got beat. We were down 6-1, and had won the first two, well, easy to cash it in. ‘OK, we’ve won the first two, we’re down 6-1, let’s just play it out.’ They came back and tied it. I think if we could’ve held it for a couple of innings, we could’ve won it. But we didn’t do it,” Leyland said before Tuesday’s game.

“That game was as good as any. It just didn’t turn out right.”

Nor did Tuesday, which surprisingly was the opener of the season series with the White Sox, coming in the final home stand before the All-Star break.

It seemed like a nice way to celebrate the return home, against a White Sox team that had trouble scoring runs — and then had trouble winning, even when they did score.

The White Sox (35-52) had scored eight runs or more six times previously, yet were just 3-3 in those games. They had 15 hits in the eighth and ninth innings alone, coming up just four shy of the all-time record of 27 allowed by the Tigers, set in 1953.

It didn’t help that the Tigers had just as much trouble scoring against lefty Jose Quintana.

Miguel Cabrera hit his 29th home run in the bottom of the eighth, a two-run shot that cut it to 8-3, and gave him 92 RBI on the season. The 29 homers are the most for any hitter in franchise history before the All-Star break, breaking Cecil Fielder’s 1990 mark of 28.

The only other contribution the Tigers got was from Tuiasosopo, who homered again, for the second game since returning from the 15-day disabled list. In 193 career big-league at-bats coming into the season, the burly outfielder had just five home runs. He now has equaled that total in his first 75 with the Tigers.

It wasn’t enough to offset the offense put up by the normally offensively-challenged ChiSox.

After starting his career 2-9 against the White Sox, Justin Verlander had won 12 of his last 13 decisions against the American League Central rivals.

The White Sox got hits off Verlander, but it seemed like all of them came with two outs: Through five innings, Chicago was 6-for-11 with a walk in two-out plate appearances.

Dayan Viciedo would continue the trend in the sixth, hitting a game-tying, two-out solo home run.

Through six innings, the White Sox had seven hits in 13 at-bats with two outs, and none in 12 at-bats with one or no outs.

Not an easy way to start a rally, for sure, even when — as Leyland said — Verlander did not have his best stuff.

“Yeah, I think that’s a fair assessment. I was able to battle, to keep the first couple of guys off the basepaths to lead off the inning, pitched pretty well up until the eighth. Then, two batters in, things kind of jumped up and bit me,” Verlander said. “Just wasn’t crisp. Just one of those days that happens at this level, at this time of the year. Felt good, but just wasn’t able to execute there in the eighth.”

And even when they did get a chance for one, the White Sox ran themselves out of it. Alejandro De Aza singled with one out, but ran all the way to second base on a foul pop-up by Alexei Ramirez, and was doubled off easily.

The trend ended for good in the eighth, when Rios — capping off a 4-for-4 day against Verlander — singled to lead off the inning, stole second, then trotted home on Adam Dunn’s laser shot home run to the right-field seats, making it 3-1.

“Well, he was jumping really early,” Verlander said, trying to recall each of the hits he gave up to Rios. “So many of them. The last at-bat, the one that really hurt me, was a slider kind of stayed middle a little bit, and he rolled it over, but it found a hole.

“He’s a great hitter, and he’s locked in at the plate.”

Verlander gave up two more singles before leaving the game after 112 pitches, having failed to get an out in the eighth inning.

Believe it or not, it went downhill from there.

Al Alburquerque — who had not given up a single home run in his first 334 regular-season batters he’d faced in his career — gave up a second in the last four batters he faced this season, as Viciedo hit a three-run shot just two pitches after Alburquerque entered the game. Three straight singles pushed across another run, Rios’ RBI single providing the first run of the game that did not score on a home run. Phil Coke would give up an RBI single to Dunn on his first pitch of the night, making it 8-1.

The White Sox put together six singles — including a sixth single of the night by Rios, tying an American League record for a nine-inning game — in the top of the ninth inning, tacking on three insurance runs.

Don Kelly hit a two-out solo home run in the ninth inning to account for the final score.

Matthew B. Mowery covers the Tigers for Digital First Media. Read his “Out of Left Field” blog at opoutofleftfield.blogspot.com.